004 - EBay Classified Ad Positions

Users find listings in eBay by browsing item categories and performing searches. Just this evening, I browsed and performed searches in some of the categories where eBay allows classified ad listings. Although the results may not be repeatable in 100% of the cases; they do seem to demonstrate a trend that should be of interest to anyone paying for classified ad spots on eBay.

My first example is from the Everything Else – eBay User Tools category:

Everything Else
    eBay User Tools
        4539 Listings including 9 Classified Ads
        91 pages sorted “Best Match”

All 9 classified ads were listed on page 91! Ok... Perhaps classified ads would fare better when returned by keyword searches. For the same category, I searched with the keyword “software”:

Everything Else
    eBay User Tools
        Search: software
            74 Listings including 2 Classified Ads
            2 pages sorted “Best Match”

The two classified ads listed on the last page, and in the last two ad slots!

Here's another example:

Specialty Services
    Restoration & Repair
        Cars & Other Vehicles
            275 Listings including 103 Classified Ads

All classified ads listed on the last 4 pages of that category. I then searched the category with the keyword “ford”:

Restoration & Repair
    Cars & Other Vehicles
        Search: ford
            10 Listings including 4 Classified Ads

The classified ads occupied that last 4 ad slots of the search results!

Here is one last example:

Business & Industrial
    Business & Websites for Sale
        1788 Listings including 93 Classified Ads

All classified ads listed on the last two pages of that category! I then searched the category with the keyword: “Make Money”:

Business & Industrial
    Business & Websites for Sale
        Search: Make Money
            262 Listings including 11 Classified Ads

The 11 classified ads listed on the last page of the search results (page 36)!

As you can see, advertisers placing classified ads are at a disadvantage by how their listings are displayed in the eBay "best match" search results. This trend seems to be more prevalent when the search results return multiple pages. For whatever reason, classified ads fare a little better (but not by much) in the Everything Else – Information Products category.

Although there are several categories where you can place classified ads, you may not fare well in every one of them given the number of standard ads that you're competing against. In the next post, I’ll show you a method for identifying categories and subcategories where your classified ads might fare better.

Until then... :)